Mickelson takes on new role

The PGA Tour as we've known it for the past decade is entering uncharted waters with the start of the Farmers Insurance Open today at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif. When Tiger Woods missed the first three tournaments of the season it wasn't a big deal because in recent years he was in the habit of missing them. But today we are officially entering into a sans-Tiger era.

His absence today at a course he has turned into his own personal ATM casts a shadow over an event that scrambled to find a last-minute corporate sponsor. It now becomes Phil Mickelson's job to carry the tour and to be its top drawing card, a role Woods has pretty much handled since he arrived on the professional scene in 1996.

Mickelson, who will be making his 2010 season debut against a less-than stellar field, has become the game's new de facto No. 1, according to Ernie Els.

"The way Phil Mickelson played at the end of last year, you know -- he played with Tiger (at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions) in Shanghai and won the tournament there on the final day,'' Els said from the Sony Open. "The Tour Championship, he won coming from behind. The way he's hitting the ball, Phil is hitting it as long or longer than anybody out there."

In a way, Woods' absence is unfortunate for Mickelson. Sparked by a late-season putting lesson from Dave Stockton, Sr., Mickelson appeared to have closed the gap that Woods held over everyone else on the tour.

"He has really been working hard, and now his putting is coming around," Els said. "I think Phil is probably the man to beat now. Even if you asked Tiger (at the end of last year), I think Phil got right to his level throughout his game. I think there's a new guy we gotta chase."

Before Woods' world crashed in on him the day after Thanksgiving and the revelations about his extra-marital affairs surfaced, the golf world was eagerly waiting to see if Mickelson's run of success against Woods would continue in 2010.

That matchup is now on hold for as long as it takes Woods to sort out his personal demons. But it will be interesting to see how Mickelson, currently ranked No. 2 in the world, holds up as golf's new No. 1 attraction. The San Diego native has won three times at Torrey Pines, but not since the 2001 Buick Invitational, after which "U.S. Open doctor" Rees Jones lengthened the South Course by more than 500 yards in order to land the 2008 U.S. Open.

Mickelson hopes his new/old forward press, which he utilized as a younger man and went back to under the tutelage of Stockton late last year, will be enough to break his streak of futility in his own backyard. He's also going to take advantage of the loophole that allows players to use square grooves as long as they're on Ping Eye2 wedges manufactured before April 1, 1990.

Mickelson said in a media conference yesterday that he experimented with several old Ping clubs that had been collecting dust around his house before deciding to bend a 60-degree wedge to 64 degrees for tournament use.

"After talking about it to the Tour and the USGA, the only thing that matters is are they approved for play," Mickelson said. "So I don't feel that there's any problem if I were to play those clubs or if anybody else were. All that matters is that it is OK under the rules of golf."

John Daly and Dean Wilson also have found old Ping wedges to use to circumvent the new groove rule, which went into effect this year and forces players to substitute V-groove wedges for their old U grooves. Because U grooves are deeper and impart more spin on the ball, especially useful from the rough, some players have reverted to the Ping Eye2s, which are exempt under the terms of a 1990 settlement between litigants Karsten Manufacturing and the USGA.